The Autonomous Stack (TAS)

TAS Score: S2/3 — D5/5 — A2 / T2 S2 not S3: code and content are fully open and cloneable (Q1 partial); exit is clean — git clone gives you everything (Q2); but recoverability depends on GitHub — if the repo is suspended or GitHub Pages goes down, the live site disappears (Q3). The project cannot currently be paused and resumed independently of GitHub’s infrastructure. Critical criteria for this category: Pause, Exit.

Why it’s in the catalog: A framework for digital autonomy should evaluate itself by its own criteria. TAS currently depends on GitHub for hosting, CI/CD, and delivery. This card documents that dependency honestly and outlines a path toward A3.

Brief Description

An open-source decision framework for evaluating and building infrastructure you control. Eight questions, a technology catalog, deployment recipes, and interactive visualizations — all generated from structured data in a single repository.

Architectural Role

Meta-framework: TAS is not infrastructure you deploy — it is a tool for deciding what infrastructure to deploy. It produces assessments, comparisons, and deployment guides. The project itself runs as a static site on GitHub Pages with GitHub Actions for automation.

Technical Autonomy

✅ All content is open source (MIT for code, CC BY-SA 4.0 for docs)
✅ Full data export — git clone captures 100% of the project
✅ No external accounts required to use the content (read-only)
⚠️ Site delivery depends on GitHub Pages — no self-hosted mirror
⚠️ CI/CD depends on GitHub Actions — automation breaks without GitHub
⚠️ Community interaction depends on GitHub Issues/Discussions

Philosophical Assessment (whose.world criteria)

Criterion	Status	Comments
Pause	Partial	Repository can be cloned and preserved offline. But the live site cannot be paused and resumed independently — it is GitHub Pages or nothing.
Exit	Yes	`git clone` gives you everything: content, automation scripts, generated pages. The project is fully portable to any Git host + static site generator.
Recoverability	Partial	Content is recoverable from any clone. But GitHub Actions workflows, Pages configuration, and community history (Issues, Discussions) are not portable.
Visibility	Yes	Fully open source. Every line of code, every assessment, every automation script is public and auditable.
External Dependencies	Partial	GitHub (hosting, CI/CD, Pages, community). Jekyll (static site generator — but replaceable). D3.js via CDN (but could be vendored).

Current Dependencies on GitHub

What	Depends on	Autonomous alternative
Code hosting	GitHub repos	Forgejo, Gitea (self-hosted)
Site delivery	GitHub Pages	Self-hosted Caddy/Nginx + static files
CI/CD automation	GitHub Actions	Woodpecker CI, Gitea Actions
Community	GitHub Issues/Discussions	Matrix, Discourse (self-hosted)
Domain	github.io subdomain	Own domain with self-hosted DNS

Path to A3

The following steps would move TAS from A2 to A3 — full autonomy:

Phase 1 — Reduce single point of failure

Register a custom domain (e.g. theautonomousstack.org)
Point it at GitHub Pages initially — but the domain is portable
This decouples identity from hosting

Phase 2 — Mirror the site

Deploy a self-hosted mirror on a VPS (static files + Caddy)
GitHub Pages remains primary, mirror is fallback
If GitHub goes down, DNS switch restores the site

Phase 3 — Self-hosted primary

Move CI/CD to Woodpecker CI or Gitea Actions on Forgejo
Host the site on own infrastructure
GitHub becomes a mirror, not the primary
Community moves to self-hosted Discourse or Matrix

Phase 4 — Full autonomy (A3)

All infrastructure self-hosted
GitHub is one of many mirrors
No single external dependency can take the project offline
The framework practices what it preaches

Alternatives

This is not a tool with alternatives — it is a framework. But alternative approaches to infrastructure evaluation exist:

awesome-selfhosted — curated list without evaluation framework
AlternativeTo — crowd-sourced recommendations without autonomy analysis
PrivacyGuides — privacy-focused recommendations, different evaluation criteria

Trajectory

Direction: opening.

TAS is moving toward greater autonomy. The project started on GitHub as a practical choice, and is incrementally reducing its GitHub dependency. Every automation added (generate_all.py, frontmatter-driven generation) makes the project more portable — the same scripts work on any CI system.

Signal assessment:

Signal	Status	Evidence
License	✅	MIT + CC BY-SA 4.0. Maximally permissive for code, copyleft for content.
Feature gating	✅	No paid tier. Everything is free and open.
Self-hosting	⚠️	Not yet self-hosted. But all prerequisites for self-hosting exist.
Governance	✅	Single maintainer (transparent). Community contributions welcome. No corporate control.

Signal key: ✅ opening · ➖ neutral · ⚠️ closing